Super-commuting: Good for your career, bad for your life?

MackenzieDawson

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The number of super-commuters is on the rise in most U.S. cities.

In the grand hierarchy of travel to and from work, there is commuting — that uneventful, possibly even pleasant ride to the office in a car, train or bus. There is telecommuting, via phone and Internet. And there is COMMUTING, of the all-caps, teeth-clenching, expletive-laced variety that makes people want to scream and throw things (but they can’t, because they’re in a monster traffic jam).

But for a growing number of Americans, there’s also super-commuting, which has been defined as a commute that is 90 minutes or more (it is also sometimes defined as a commute that is 180 or more miles from home). Often, the super-commuter might spend most of the work week in the city their office is based, returning home on weekends. While many who brave such a setup are young and single, others are married or have families.

A 2012 study by New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management found that Manhattan alone now has 59,000 “super commuters” — people who work in the city but do not live in the surrounding metropolitan area, and instead might dwell in such places as Philly, D.C., Boston — or other areas entirely, reachable by plane rather than a long drive or train ride home. It’s a trend that is on the rise in 8 out of 10 of the major metropolitan areas in the U.S., according to studies conducted by NYU.

In 2012, there were an estimated 3.42 million full-time workers who were super-commuters, according to Megan Bearce, a marriage and family therapist and author of the book “Super Commuter Couples: Staying Together When A Job Keeps You Apart.”

Bearce knows super-commuting firsthand; her husband, Ian, works in Manhattan, commuting back to Minneapolis on weekends to spend time with her and their two kids. Her husband’s advertising company is flexible and supportive of the arrangement; he leaves at 4 P.M. most Fridays to catch a flight to Minneapolis, and he works one Friday a month from home.

The family had moved from Los Angeles to Minnesota in 2009. Shortly after moving, Ian got a call from a company in New York about a job. He told them he had just moved and wasn’t interested. The company called back a few months later. At that point, the situation had changed: he realized the company in Minnesota wasn’t doing as well as he thought; he wasn’t even sure how long it would be in business.

“And this [job in NYC] was a dream job,” says Bearce. “We said we’d try it for a year. And it has been four years this fall.”

“When I tell people about our arrangement,” she adds, “They either say, “I can’t believe you guys are doing that!” or they say, “Oh my god, I know someone who’s doing that, too!”

Both Stephanie Ross and her husband are super-commuters: She lives in Minnesota, he lives in Colorado, but they both spend portions of time on the other’s home turf. Ross, an executive coach, can do her job pretty much anywhere, whereas most of her husband’s clients in his Internet marketing job are in Colorado. When the pair started dating nine years ago, the arrangement developed out of necessity: Ross’s children were still in school, and her support network was in Minnesota. Now, with the kids in college, it’s more of a choice.

“It’s the best of both worlds,” says Ross. “He didn’t want to leave Colorado and come back to Minnesota because his job is there and he’s an avid outdoorsman. We continue to super-commute because the truth is, we like it. It works. And the great thing about it is, it keeps the relationship really fresh.”

Elizabeth Hahn has been a super-commuter for more than six years. As the education program specialist for the Ohio Department of Education, she works in Columbus — but her husband (and house) are two hours away in the town of St. Clairesville, Ohio. She rents a one-bedroom apartment in Columbus and commutes back home on weekends.

“It’s added a bit of complication to an already complicated life,” she says, “But I thought it would help my retirement to be in this position. And I love the responsibility of it.”

So why has super-commuting become a trend?

“Even though house prices have recovered partially, access to the housing market remains difficult. It’s still not easy to get a mortgage,” says Mitchell Moss, Director of the Rudin Transportation Center at New York University. “Keeping your home and commuting to work is preferable, even if it means commuting a long distance.”

The job market itself — not just the availability of jobs, but the stability of the jobs themselves — plays a big role as well.

“The stress of relocating two people for jobs, as opposed to just one, is much greater,” says Moss. “The nature of employment today is much more fragile. Lifetime positions are limited to federal judges and college professors. And that lack of security has made people more willing to travel for the job than move TO the job.”

And lastly, technology has made it a much more viable option.

“Whether it’s a plane, train or automobile, there’s no longer any downtime,” says Moss. “Traveling is no longer a time when you can’t do work. There’s far more information technology in a car today than there is in some houses.”

Mackenzie Dawsonis a contributing editor at the New York Post. She covers motherhood, workplace issues, and pop culture, and has a column, Motherland, at nypost.com.

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